As part of the Single Market Strategy, The European Commission has announced a revision of the Postal Services Directive under the forthcoming Delivery Act.
This critical step aligns with long-standing demands of postal trade unions across Europe and reflects a significant victory for worker mobilisations under UNI Europa’s Save Our Post campaign. For far too long, the Commission has fuelled liberalisation, eroded postal services and undermined decent work across the sector.
What do postal workers want?
Postal workers and their unions are clear: the new framework must guarantee strong public postal services, ensure quality jobs and put an end to exploitative practices in the name of competition.
The pressure is now on the Commission to deliver for people and not only for profit. The Commission must draw up a legislative proposal that genuinely protects universal service obligations, secures decent jobs and ends the race to the bottom in the sector.
This revision represents a critical opportunity to modernise the sector and deliver fairer outcomes for workers and society. Launched by postal trade unions throughout Europe, the Save Our Post campaign calls for urgent reforms to restore fairness, coherence, and sustainability in the European postal sector.
At the heart of the campaign lies a simple but vital demand: a level playing field in the provision of universal postal services – particularly through the inclusion of e-commerce parcel delivery within the scope of the Universal Service Obligation (USO) – to reflect the true structure of the market and ensure the public postal network remains viable.
UNI Europa will lobby intensively at European level for a strong regulatory framework in the new Delivery Act that safeguards the financing and future of the USO, strengthens its social mission and adapts it to the evolving needs of the digital and e-commerce age.
“The current postal regulatory framework is outdated,” said Oliver Roethig, UNI Europa Regional Secretary. “It fails to reflect the reality that e-commerce parcel volumes are the lifeblood of today’s postal ecosystem. Without their inclusion in the USO, we risk eroding public service delivery and allowing unfair competition to flourish.”
Stopping the Race to the Bottom
UNI Europa Post & Logistics is particularly encouraged by the Commission’s acknowledgement of the need to regulate all actors in the postal delivery supply chain. As highlighted in the campaign, the absence of binding social and employment standards across the sector has led to a dangerous race to the bottom – undermining decent work, pressuring wages and degrading service quality.
The upcoming revision offers a historic opportunity to:
- Establish regulatory coherence across the wider postal supply chain by including all delivery operators;
- Ensure financial sustainability of the USO;
- Guarantee quality jobs across the postal supply chain;
- End unfair competition based on low wages, precarious conditions, and widespread subcontracting practices especially in last-mile delivery.
Robust implementation
The inclusion of parcel regulation in the Delivery Act reflects key elements of the Save Our Post platform and validates the persistent advocacy of postal trade unions across the EU. However, the road ahead requires vigilance.
“This is a strong step forward, but the fight continues,” said Jens Saverstam, SEKO and President of UNI Europa Post & Logistics. “We need to ensure that the revised Directive brings enforceable standards, proper oversight, and meaningful inclusion of competitors into the regulatory net. Only then can we protect both universal service missions and quality employment.”
UNI Europa and its affiliates will remain fully engaged in the legislative process to ensure that the Delivery Act lives up to its promise: a sustainable, fair and inclusive future for the European postal sector.
UNI Europa and its affiliates call on the EU institutions to enact a robust Delivery Act that puts workers and service quality at its core, not just competition and cost-cutting.
The new Delivery Act is urgently needed to guarantee that what happened in Denmark does not repeat itself elsewhere. The overhaul of the USO in Denmark and the devastating impact it has had on the workforce and operations at PostNord Denmark, is a cautionary tale. We must avoid more social damage and protect the future of postal workers and quality public service in all member states.